Wrote a Screenplay Which Seemed Poorly Timed Last Year -- Now It's Timely, Unfortunately
I love the movie Parasite and aspired to evoke a similar dynamic. Also loved a French movie from the 1980s called "Cross My Heart" about a boy whose mother dies and then his classmates swear to secrecy one by one to support him and keep him from being taken by the state. Spielberg bought the rights to remake it in English but never did.
My screenplay is:
SQUAT
>Logline: After the unexpected death of her mother, an undocumented girl forms an uneasy relationship with a homeless, former restaurant owner to hide from his debts and her deportation.<
It was not timely last year because squatters were demonized and politicized with many cases of people truly abusing home owners and neighborhoods by squatting vacant houses.
In my story, the pair squat in a seasonally-used mansion which her mother used to clean. They are able to hide in plain sight in the wealthy neighborhood as long as they are dressed as cleaners or landscapers because the residents treat them as invisible and don't talk much to each other.
I love the heart of the story but I have to make the end work better. Right now it is: after the arrest of the restaurateur, the girl confesses to a neighbor who is a recently-retired female DA and the two of them work together to clear the restaurateur. Then the three of them finally give her mother a proper burial and the lawyer adopts her.
It seems too passive and convenient. It make the protagonist into an "endanger innocent" character eg. not an active protagonist who makes a tough choice and wins on her own terms in the end. I am open to anything potentially better for the ending or any feedback on the idea in general. If I make the restaurant owner the protagonist then the end is in the clear but she isn't and so he decides to risk all and with the help of the lawyer they create a paper trail that makes the girl appear to be his natural born daughter. But then the problem is he is less vulnerable than she is throughout so his problems seem a petty compared to hers and they can be seen as problems which he created (debt although Covid is what ended his business) and I love the idea of having the girl as the protagonist. Ugh!
This is the opening:
- - - - - -
FADE UP
INT. ABBIE’S HOUSE – ABBIE’S BEDROOM - DAWN
Happy cartoon characters with huge eyes, like Lilo and Stitch, gaze down from posters. A crack in the wall and the stain of water damage suggest a minimally maintained rental property.
A girl, ABBIE, (12) healthy, confident, Hispanic, sleeps peacefully beneath colorful bedding.
EXT. ABBIE’S STREET
The eastern horizon glows; the sun not yet emerged. Hum of insects in the lawns and trees of a slightly rundown residential street built in 1940-50s in a city like Rochester or Binghamton NY.
2-story American Foursquare style houses in various conditions. Some well-kept. Some boarded up and tagged with graffiti.
We sink until the black surface of the street pavement right below us stretches to a low horizon. Houses of the neighborhood frame the sky above.
RUMBLE of military vehicles crescendos. An unseen dog barks at the first signs of this disturbance.
An ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIER, surplus from the Afghan war, comes into frame from above, like the beginning of Star Wars New Hope. Its dark undercarriage a maze of metallic shielding, axels and exhaust pipes.
ANOTHER APC follows closely behind the first, temporarily blocking our sky again.
INT. ABBIE’S HOUSE – ABBIE’S BEDROOM
Sweeps of red and blue lights cross the wall above Abbie who begins to wake.
EXT. STREET IN FRONT OF HOUSE GETTING RAIDED
The WHOOP of a hovering helicopter makes us look up to see it. Its spotlight illuminates a house down the street in white glare.
EIGHT POLICE CARS follow the APCs and stop behind them.
I/E. INSIDE THE FIRST APC
SIX MEN in military style vests, duty belts, body armor, helmets, machine guns. Pale green uniforms with big white lettering across their chests and backs -- “ICE POLICE.”
LEAD ICE AGENT (LIA), 40, buzz cut, jock-jawed, roid bodied, gives orders as the vehicle stops.
LIA
Blue team – Straight to the door and breech it! GO!
Red team set the perimeter! GO!
The side door opens and the agents pour out.
LIA grabs a mic on a retractable cord.
The roof-mounted loudspeaker amplifies LIA’s orders to the waking neighborhood.
LIA (OS)
This is a raid!
Do not flee!
Do not resist!
Blue team runs toward the front door of a house no different from the rest.
INT. ABBIE’S HOUSE – ABBIE’S BEDROOM
ABBIE looks out her bedroom window wide-eyed. She sees
EXT. HOUSE GETTING RAIDED
Blue Team 1 (BT1) swings a heavy metal battering ram against the front door of Abbie’s neighbor. BT2, BT3 and BT4, with tall shields and guns drawn, fill the porch.
Police crouch behind the cover of their stopped cars. 16 guns resting on their cars’ hood and door hinges. All pointed at the house.
The front door of the house breaks along the jamb. Large splinters. The dead bolt hangs in the space where the door was seconds ago.
Scared members of a FAMILY begin to emerge. Shaking with fear. Compliant with all commands.
LIA (OS)
Face away from us!
Face away and walk backward!
A male CHILD, about 5, emerges, facing forward, crying.
LIA (OS)
(angry)
WALK BACKWARD TO US!
DO IT NOW!
The child looks at all the guns and collapses in a heap on the porch. BT2 moves in. Picks up the child. Quickly carries him down the front steps.
INT. ABBIE’S HOUSE – ABBIE’S BEDROOM
Abbie crouches. Her eyes, just above the window sill, watch in fear and near disbelief.
EXT. HOUSE GETTING RAIDED
The FATHER emerges carrying a baby in one arm. Raising his other hand, empty, in surrender.
LIA (OS)
Face away from us!
Walk BACKWARD!
Father turns around facing the door he just came out of. He walks backward to the steps of his porch.
His foot feels for the edge where he needs to step down.
The BABY screams in fear.
BT3 steps up behind him and guides him down the stairs.
FEMALE POLICE OFFICER (FPO) runs in. Takes the baby.
BT3 and BT4 force the father face down on the grass and cuff him behind his back.
INT. ABBIE’S HOUSE – ABBIE’S BEDROOM
Abbie cries. Her eyes unable to look away.
MRS. GARCIA, 38, Hispanic, is now beside her and crouches. She hugs Abbie in an attempt to comfort her.
MG
Va a estar bien.
MG covers Abbie’s eyes but Abbie tugs MG’s hands down to look again.
EXT. STREET IN FRONT OF HOUSE GETTING RAIDED
Police load the FAMILY, with the adults in handcuffs, into the various vehicles.
Screaming Baby in the arms of FPO, reaches in vain toward its mother who sits handcuffed in the back of a nearby police car.
FPO
You stop crying.
Stop it now!
The first of the vehicles pulls away.
TITLE SEQUENCE
INT. ABBIE’S SCHOOLROOM
Tight on Abbie. She sits at her desk, third row, lost in thoughts. Remembering the raid.
The one-sheet math test on her desk waits for progress. Abbie’s pencil is idle.
TEACHER arrives at her desk, sees Abbie’s lack of progress. Crouches. Speaks quietly near Abbie’s ear.
Teacher
Something wrong?
Abbie nods.
Teacher
Here? Or at home?
Abbie
At home.
Teacher
Talk to me during break.
If you want to.
Okay?
Abbie nods.
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